view the rest of the comments
No Stupid Questions
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
It seems like in this situation, it's reasonable to just use the word "trans". I really appreciate how much thought you're putting in to inclusiveness, but it seems like it isn't the queer community at large who your older coworkers are struggling to accept, but specifically trans people.
I don't know all the details, but I would recommend two things:
First, you need to help trans people feel safe while they're in your place of work. They are the people who are at the center of this conversation, not you and not your older coworkers. Get a small Progress Flag and put it somewhere in your workspace where it is visible to the public and also clearly associated with you. Your goal here is to put up a little flag that says "if you're in the queer community, come to me and I will make you comfortable". These statements of inclusiveness are aimed to the public, not your coworkers--your coworkers already know that you're an ally because they know who you are and what kind of actions you do, but the general public doesn't have that luxury so this is where your efforts for inclusiveness should be focused.
Second, if you do want to buy clothes or accessories to show your older coworkers that you support trans identities and try to change their minds about doing the same, make sure you support trans artists when you do so :) don't "get them made", buy them from a trans artist who has already made them. Not only will you be financially supporting the people you want to support, but you'll also be elevating the voice of an actual trans person--which I think is what you wanted to do when you made this post.
That being said, hostile phrasing like "I'll identify as a problem" may not be the best way to change someone's mind. I don't know a lot about your coworkers, but you might be the only person to ever speak to them with empathy about empathy for trans people. You've got an opportunity here to prove wrong the stereotypes about "screaming SJWs", stereotypes that are so baked in to our society that they have even managed to enter the discussion we're having here. In a world like the one that we live in, kindness and patience are radical and powerful tools, if we choose to use them.
tldr: I want to come off as a little aggressive - not enough to start a fight necessarily, but enough to catch coworkers attention. In the meantime the pride colors are already flying in a prominent position.
I see what you mean about the hostility. But to be honest, I'm aiming at being a bit aggressive. The people I want to influence are so used to hear soft messages, that they pay no attention if you don't force a slight edge in their faces. Besides, I'm done seeing trans kids, who have done nothing wrong, be met with dead sexing by boomers who are so frigging well aware of the kid's gender identity. It's like that episode of Fawlty Towers, except it's actually happening in front of you and instead of being funny it's incredibly cringy and you start to feel sorry for the kid.
I love everything you've said, I just want to add to that last point - while kindness and patience are radical and powerful tools, and people, allies especially, should try to lead with those, expecting (not that you implied it, just saying) marginalised people to be patient and kind in the face of bigotry is the height of privilege and often slips in to tone policing. People need to understand that anger is a valid reaction and part of the education, and that discomfort is essential to growth.
Absolutely, and thanks for pointing this out! I don't have anything to add, I just wanted to let folks know that you're 100% correct.
<3